Wall Street Journal
Recent stock market swings provided a chance to see the Volcker rule in action. The paper reports big banks made only a small portion of trades for themselves amidst the market volatility of the last two weeks, instead focusing on making bets on behalf of their clients. This is in keeping with the design of the Volcker rule, which aims to preserve the safety and soundness of the financial system by restricting banks' trading activities.
The lawyer who represented MasterCard in a $6 billion antitrust settlement with merchants admitted she used confidential information from an opposing attorney.
The Federal Housing Administration wants to reassure banks that minor mistakes in mortgage loan documentation won't leave them on the hook in expensive lawsuits — but some banks remain skeptical. The FHA's proposed loan-certification documents are meant to lure gun-shy banks back to making government-insured loans to riskier borrowers. Wells Fargo says the proposal doesn't go far enough, and tells the paper it plans to dial back FHA lending as a result.
Apple's potential to encroach on banks' territory has a lot of financial executives shaking in their boots, according to the results of a recent bank director survey. Wal-Mart and Lending Club round out the top-three list of bankers' most-feared competitors.
Financial Times
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren says the global economic slowdown and recent market volatility may prompt him to downgrade his growth outlook at the Fed's next forecasting meeting. But Fedspeak translators say he still sounds open to the possibility of an initial rate hike come September, so long as the Fed inches rates up slowly.
Major digital companies should set a good example for the rest of the industry by voluntarily adopting privacy and security standards for big data, according to an op-ed by Publicis Groupe chief Maurice Lévy.
Elsewhere ...
Daily Herald: Some big banks are rolling back customer services like drive-through windows and counting change as they shift to a strategy focused more on mobile banking, the Chicago paper reports. A couple local banks are swooping in to fill the gap.
